Many expats get into bad relationship not knowingly. Imagine, you are in a country alone, maybe for the first time, trying to work and build a future for you and your family back home. After few months of hard work, you feel alone, your family back home is busy with their own thing. You wake up one day and you found yourself committed in another relationship that made your all the past dreams and hopes gone.
Or you went somewhere as a bachelor to work, and you met someone, you thought you found the right person. You start dreaming of creating a life with that person, sacrificing your time, and the money you are earning with that someone, and the day you have some hard time, you see that person is gone. You are left alone, lost all the money, and most importantly you lost precious years of your life.
I understand, many good relationships go bad even if both had good intentions, that is normal, people change, situations change. But that is not what I am writing about, this is not relationship counselling post. I am talking about relationships that started based on greed for money, attention, or favors. Maybe your partner is using you to reach a goal they cannot reach alone and then dump you for better opportunities.
Why it is more possible to happen while working overseas
The UAE or similar countries are great place for people who like to find rich targets. People come here for fast fortune, and many after reaching Dubai or similar countries (Hong Kong, Singapore, Saudi…etc), they start seeing that one income might not be enough to compensate for the expensive standard of living and all the temptations of life these places offer.
Some people start to look around for a second income, and one easy income is being an escort, exchange sextual service and companionship for money or favors. It can be less insulting and more agreeable if they convince themselves and the other person that what they are into is not prostitution but a relationship, they are in love with each other. Having a relationship with someone willing to pay knowingly or unknowingly for a companionship is still prostitution but sounds socially more aggregable for both parties.
Escort services are everywhere, so what is the problem?
There are many bachelors or older married people working overseas alone away from home and family, most of the time they feel lonely and can be vulnerable emotionally, any temptation can make them fall into a trap. I am not trying to find excuses, but this is fact and unfortunately people, still need companion.
I call it a trap, because, in my opinion, these types of relationships are much worse than prostitution. Prostitution is limited amount of agreed pay for a limited and agreed service. But falling for this type of relationships and hoping for emotional attachments drains your money faster and with no limit or comparable returns, in addition it wastes your time, and drains you emotionally, and make you lose your family back home if you are married.
The government in UAE and the other GCC countries fight hard to eliminate prostitution, but relationships cannot be monitored or controlled, since it is not institutional prostitution. There are strict rules prohibit unrelated couple occupy the same hotel room or register a house or apartment rent by both names, but that never prevented anyone, just maybe make it more challenging and more desirable.
In the most restricted Saudi, I never heard police knock on people house doors asking if there is a woman not related to them inside.
Gold diggers are young girls after old western men only
This is a common misconception, gold digger, I like to call them scammers, can be men or women, and at different ages and target different genders and nationalities. I had many friends from different economical scale, genders, and nationalities been scammed.
An American friend of mine, in her 40s moved in with a young lawyer she was in relationship with. Just after she moved in, the guy claimed he lost his job. As a normal people in relationship, she started to pick up the bills. One day she came back, and the guy was gone, and couple of days later she got a note of evection because the rent for 6 months not been paid, the bank was after the car, beside she lost a considerable cash he took from her as a loan.
Another friend in her late 30s, from east Europe, was married to a General Manager in a big company. One day after two years of marriage, the guy went see his parent for an emergency. The guy disappeared and she had no news from him for days. She got worried, she realized she does not know anything about the guy apart from their life in Dubai. She called his office and found out that he was fired months before. As she was wondering what happened, she got a call from the landlord for no payment, few friends, and the Bank contacted her asking for total of more than $300,000 personal loans he borrowed before he left.
Having said all that, young girls after richer and more resourceful guys, is one of the most common type of stories you will hear happened to overseas workers. some end up penniless and started to work again after retirement.
How to suspect that the relationship is a scam?
I will start by saying, this is a general theme I discovered, it is not the only way. Also, I do not believe that all people care about you, or you help them are bad. Relationship is “give and take” and caring must be two ways.
Every relationship has its ups and downs, couples help each other during need, and that is the whole reason why human like to live in families. But if your partner started to totally depend on you financial and other types of support all the time and without understanding your needs, that is a red flag for a bad relationship.
The whole scheme is quite simple, starts with you expressing feeling of loneliness, discontent and need for fun or change. Once you did that, the rest is simple, they come as the one person in the world that cares about you more than anyone, and in return you need to prove your love and commitment, by allowing them to drain you as much and as fast as possible. After they reach their goal, they create a reason to leave or just disappear.
Sometimes you see couples, where one partner treats the other as an entitled teenager brat child, not a partner, with no consideration for the partners capabilities, feelings, or willingness. It might feel strange, but it happened to so many of the smartest people I know. In my opinion, the people they think they are smart, they usually are the biggest targets.
Another thing might be a red flag, when you confront the person with something you did not like. The reaction would be a big outburst of emotions, crying, anger, guilt trip and accusing you being over jealous, or stingy, or a user, used them and now trying to find an excuse to leave. They would go as far as accusing you of harassment, abuse and even theft.
Conclusion
Working and living alone overseas can be very lonesome, most people will need some companionships and friendships. We cannot be on guard all the time; we must trust people sometimes. But if you see or feels something is wrong and you start feeling you need to leave, just leave.
Some people cannot leave because they feel they invested in the relationship – time, money, and emotions – and they will want to get some returns or wait for a cold revenge. In my opinion, leave, do not look back, and the sooner you leave, means less waste of money, time, and emotions.
Remember you cannot outsmart scammers, they think all the time of how to manipulate you, even if you were experienced, and smart, you have other things in your life, while they have only one thing.
As a summary, my opinion after long experience is, if you are married, do not get involved in a relationships and commitments, not worth it, if you think otherwise, at least keep your family, friends back home information and your social media as far as possible from your relationship reach.
If you are not married, make sure you know the person, the family, their old friends and always keep your eyes and ears open. Remember you are in a foreign country, people come from different places and they can disappear very easily.
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